


Unbroken

by St_Salieri



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-09
Updated: 2011-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-25 09:59:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/St_Salieri/pseuds/St_Salieri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few years ago, the thought would have been unthinkable.  Now, Dean can't help but wonder if he's really finished with it all.  Spoilers through 6.11.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unbroken

Dean waited until he was sure - until Sam stopped gasping in pain, until Death vanished with a mocking smile, until a harried Castiel made a brief appearance and confirmed that, yes, Sam's soul had been restored to him. Only then did Dean peel himself away from the wall of Bobby's panic room to go upstairs and find a bottle to crawl into.

Poor Bobby. Had that damn room been used for anything other than containing the Winchester brothers at one point or another?

It was beyond cowardly, he knew. It was cowardly to leave Sam down there with no one but Bobby to answer his questions and try to explain to Sam why he was tied up in the panic room again and what in the hell was going on. But Dean's throat had closed up as soon as Sam's eyes - God, _Sam's_ eyes - had locked onto his, and he'd had to make his escape before he did something embarrassing like hyperventilate. Or cry.

Dean took a long swallow from the almost-empty bottle of cheap vodka he'd found stashed below the kitchen sink. It wasn't much - certainly not enough to get drunk off of - but it would almost be enough to take the edge off. Mostly, kinda. Dean had so many sharp edges rubbing against each other that he suspected it would take an entire liquor store to reach the kind of mellowness he used to get from a couple of beers. Probably a sign that he should seriously cut back on the drinking, but it wasn't like he had any practice at suppressing any of his other vices. Why start now?

It couldn't have been long - maybe half an hour or so, just long enough for Dean to lie back on the couch in Bobby's cluttered study and lose himself in watching the beams of the just-risen sun creep along the wall - before he heard voices coming up the stairs that led to the basement. Dean shut his eyes wearily at the sound of Bobby's low murmur, the creak of the wood, and then the quiet click as the front door closed. He didn't need to open them to feel that Sam was standing in the doorway. His presence burned on Dean's closed eyelids brighter than the rising sun.

"Hey," he finally said quietly, opening his eyes.

Sam stood hunched in the doorway, broad shoulders curling in on themselves and forehead wrinkled up like a Shar-Pei, staring at Dean with worried eyes. It was such a little kid gesture, the way Sam would stand in Dean's door after a fight with Dad and silently beg for him to make things better. And this, more than anything else - more than Death's and Castiel's mystical assurances - let him know that this was really his own Sam again, full and complete.

Sam's eyes roamed around the room, took in the messy desk and piles of books and Dean's empty bottle sitting on the ground next to the couch. His eyes were red-rimmed, shining with pain and a bone-deep weariness, and once again Dean had to blink rapidly against the sudden onset of tears.

"Do you want me to leave?"

It took him a moment too long to answer Sam's hoarse question, but Dean finally shook his head.

"No."

Sam hesitated in the doorway for a moment longer, then crossed over to Bobby's overstuffed armchair and collapsed into it. His fingers picked fretfully at the worn upholstery as he looked back and forth quickly between Dean's face and the floor before apparently deciding that the floor was more appealing. Which was just as well for Dean, because it allowed him the chance to study Sam's face for a long minute without Sam studying him back. He didn't realize how much he had grown to hate RoboSam's artificially smooth expression, the cold emptiness of the eyes, the creepy faux sympathy.

And fuck it, Dean was allowed to look as long as he wanted. This was the first time he'd really seen his brother since that horrible day in Detroit.

"How are you doing?" he finally asked. It was such a lame question - what exactly was Sam supposed to say in return?

Sam just shrugged.

"I remember everything," he said quietly, looking Dean in the eyes for the first time. He must have seen Dean tense, because his next words came more quickly, as if ripped out of him. "Not...not about hell. Bobby told me about that, that there would be some holes there. That I shouldn't try to think about it too much, because...." He cleared his throat, stumbling to a halt. "I mean...I remember everything about the last year and a half, being up here."

Dean couldn't think about that yet, didn't want to, so he changed the subject. "Was that Bobby I heard going out?"

Sam smiled a humorless smile. "Yeah. I think it's going to take a while for my _hey, sorry I just tried to murder you_ apology to sink in. I wouldn't blame him if he just freaking disowned me for real at this point."

Dean grabbed the vodka bottle, gave it a baleful glare for having the audacity to be empty, and returned it to the floor.

"You know Bobby," he said, back to studying the ceiling now that Sam was looking at him. His voice sounded dull in his own ears, flat and automatic. "We're family. You don't turn your back on family."

Sam's bark of a laugh was painful to Dean's ears. He didn't dare look up out of fear that his brother was crying.

"Maybe you should," Sam said, voice wavering as if he was putting all of his effort into controlling it and failing miserably. "Because I don't know if you've noticed, Dean, but your family is a bunch of assholes."

Dean sat up at that, looked hard at Sam, at the way he was once again looking at the floor, at the way his mouth was pressed into a tight, wobbling line.

"Hey, that's no way to speak about our grandfather," Dean said, forcing a smile, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

If it were possible, Sam looked even more miserable. "That's not what I mean, and you know it," he told the floor. "Dean I _remember_. How I let you go a whole year thinking I was dead. And everything after - the secrets I kept, the lies I told, the thing with the vampires.... _God_." He ran his hand through his hair, tugging on it fiercely enough to make Dean wince. "I almost wish I'd hated you, but I couldn't even feel that. It's like this big hole, right here," and Sam pounded his fist on his own chest. "And you don't even know what I did that first year after I came back. I can't even...." He broke off with a sob, and Dean's chest convulsed with a sharp ache.

"Sam," he said softly, carefully. "That wasn't you."

The fury and hate in Sam's eyes when he finally looked up surprised Dean, until he realized that it was directed entirely inward.

"It _was_ me," he said in a low voice. "This wasn't like being possessed. I was _there_ , and there was no one else. There's no demon I can blame this on. It was all me."

"No," Dean said sharply, before he'd even decided to say it. It was fierce and automatic, and it was entirely the truth. "That was _not_ all you. That's the whole point." He sighed heavily. "I'm not going to tell you not to blame yourself, because I've been trying recently not to give advice I wouldn't keep myself. But Sam...."

He was out of words, could only look helplessly at the sneer of self-disgust on Sam's face. It was a painfully familiar expression, but one he was more used to seeing in the mirror than on his brother's face.

"I saw you with Lisa and Ben, a couple of times," Sam said, eyes fixed on the opposite wall. "You never knew I was there, but I checked on you a few times. You looked...you looked happy." The noise of Sam's throat as he swallowed was loud in the quiet room. "You deserve that, Dean. To be happy with your own family. I know it's what you want. You don't have to be my conscience any more."

Dean recognized it when he saw it, the mixture of apology and resignation. Sam was giving him an out. And for a long moment, he thought very hard about taking it. The automatic denial he would have given a couple of years ago never appeared. He missed Lisa with a fierceness that made him ache, missed the relationship he had built with Ben, missed the quiet home they'd had together. It would be so easy to take Sam up on his offer

A couple of years ago he would have said _don't be silly, Sam_. A couple of years ago he would have said _dude, I don't know what you're talking about_. But this wasn't a couple of years ago, and Sam deserved more than the usual brush-off. So for an endless moment Dean sat quietly and just let himself feel the _want_ \- want for a place to rest his head every night, for a pair of warm eyes and soft arms, for a small face that looked at him with trust and respect. He took all that want and loneliness and let it wash over and through him, and when it had passed he found himself almost surprised that everything hurt just a bit less.

And more importantly, he knew what to say to Sam.

"Sammy," he said quietly, holding out his hand. "Come here."

It had been too long since he'd said the name, and his throat burned as he spoke it. The creature wearing his brother's face hadn't deserved it.

Sam's face crumpled, but he unfolded himself from the chair and walked unsteadily to the couch before collapsing next to it and burying his face in the cushions next to Dean's lap like a supplicant. Dean put his hand on Sam's head and stroked through the long hair, scratching gently over the scalp the way he used to when Sam was a little boy and Dean had been trying to get him to fall asleep. Sam let out a moan clogged with tears and reached up to wrap one big hand around Dean's wrist, holding tightly and letting Dean pet his hair.

The light stretched across the floor as the sun rose higher in the sky, illuminating the dust motes that hung heavy in the air. Dean continued to run his fingers over Sam's head, listening to the rhythmic pulse of his brother's heavy breaths. It was a quiet morning otherwise, the colors in the room muted and soft. It felt new, somehow. It felt like the first day after the end of the world.

"Man, you really need a haircut," Dean said eventually, tugging on the long strands. Sam lifted his head with a watery laugh. His eyes were still haunted, but more clear now.

"Maybe," he agreed. "I just want..."

Dean gave him a minute. "What do you want, Sam?" he finally prodded.

Sam gave a shrug and a self-deprecating smirk, letting go of Dean's wrist to settle more comfortably on the floor. "I'd kinda like to stop being a monster," he said softly. "I'd like to stop hurting you. You know, if it's okay with the rest of the universe. Because, been there, done that, and I'm getting pretty tired of it."

"Hey," Dean said sharply, giving Sam's head a swat. "No one calls my brother a monster, you hear me?"

Sam smiled weakly and let his head drop back on the couch. "God, we're so fucked up."

"We're going to be okay," Dean said firmly, doing his goddamned best to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Because, after all they had done, all the lives they had saved? It wasn't like he was asking for a million bucks and the keys to a beach house. But maybe an escape from psychological torment would be nice, for both him and Sam. "We'll be okay," he said again, as if he could make it come true by force of repetition.

"I'm just so tired," Sam whispered into the cushion.

"Come on," Dean said, standing up and dragging Sam to his feet before pushing him back down onto the couch. "Switch places. You'll be more comfortable."

Sam folded himself onto the couch as best he could, blinking trustfully up at Dean. "Close your eyes," Dean ordered, rubbing his thumb across Sam's forehead until Sam obeyed him with a soft sigh. "I guess it's been a while since you've slept, huh?"

"God, you're not kidding," Sam said, his voice slurring with weariness. "I just need...just for a little while, okay?" His eyes blinked open, panicked, when Dean pulled away, then shut again in relief when Dean merely settled on the floor and leaned his head back against the hard knobs of Sam's bent knees.

"Rest, Sammy," he said softly, watching carefully as Sam's breathing evened out and his face grew slack. "I'm not going anywhere."

 


End file.
